David Brooks: Let’s face it, Obama has a manhood problem in the Middle East

posted at 3:21 pm on April 21, 2014 by Allahpundit

A below-the-buckle bookend to Brooks saying five years ago that he knew Obama would be a good president by the crease in his pants. Question: If he’s right that O has a “manhood problem,” what’s the policy Viagra that’ll solve it? What do people think he should do, or should have done, to be tougher? As I recall, opposition to bombing Assad for crossing Obama’s “red line” last fall was fairly bipartisan. Demands from hawks like McCain that we arm the “moderate” rebels in Syria have been derided as much by grassroots righties as they have by the left. We snicker at O for wrist-slapping Putin and his cronies with sanctions as punishment for invading Ukraine but no one in either party is suggesting anything radically more confrontational. And on Iran, while he’s being naive about the chances of a meaningful nuclear freeze, it’s hard to knock him for also being skeptical about a military attack that many experts think will delay Iran’s program by only a few years even if it’s “successful.” The fact is, Obama answers to a public that’s justifiably weary of war. His capacity to be “tough” abroad is limited and the Assads and Putins know it. Given how Bush shifted towards diplomacy in his second term, I’m frankly not sure how starkly he would disagree with Obama’s basic approach these days. Would Dubya, the great promoter of democracy abroad, have stood by Mubarak when Egyptians were out in the streets? Would he be bombing Iran at this point? (He passed when he had the chance.) Would he have done anything vis-a-vis Ukraine that he didn’t do vis-a-vis Georgia?

Note Chuck Todd’s point at the end about the White House fretting about rhetoric too. Is it better for Obama to talk tough even if he has no intention of acting tough or, if he’s intent on not acting, should he tone things down? His aides apparently think his problem is that he doesn’t sound tough enough, but sounding tough is how he ended up with that “red line” fiasco in Syria.

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His capacity to be “tough” abroad is limited and the Assads and Putins know it.

That isn’t the problem. He went all in 100% Chicago Thug Tough Guy with Assad drawing red lines all over the place and we will strike you so I don’t get mocked and he got called on it and cried like a little girl, that is the problem.

I mean seriously, he drew a very clear distinct red line and when Assad crossed it Obama wet his pants.

Demands from hawks like McCain that we arm the “moderate” rebels in Syria have been derided as much by grassroots righties as they have by the left.

These “rebel” friends of “hawk” John McCain are shariah loving and Christian torturing, Christian raping and Christian men, women and children murdering sub-animals and John McCain is mad dog rapid insane.

As I recall, opposition to bombing Assad for crossing Obama’s “red line” last fall was fairly bipartisan.

You don’t get it, AP.

It’s not that Obama wussed out on his threats regarding his “red line” threats. It’s that he was forced into a beta male position of having to even make a red line ultimatum threat. Iran coughed up our hostages with Reagan ever giving them any sort of ultimatum.

A president without a “manhood problem” wouldn’t need to issue empty threats.

And the problem is even worse than Brooks states. One doesn’t need to be a man to get respect in the middle east. A strong woman such as the Irony Lady would be respected just fine.

So Brooksie is saying that O’Butthead doesn’t “measure up”? that he can’t “get ‘er done”? that he can’t keep his subjects satisfied, to the point that they look elsewhere for their “thrill”? that O’Butthead can’t fly full-mast? that he “goes off” prematurely?

We knew all that beforehand. Mooch told the world that her husband was “stinky in bed.”

On Aug. 28, 1964, Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. spoke the immortal words, “I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.” Amen.

The people judging his children by the color of their skin at the time were Democrats who ruled the south, birthed Jim Crow and lynched thousands. Today, 50 years after that speech, Democrats still judge people by the color of their skin but now have added sexual orientation, gender and any other way human beings can be subdivided to their list of prejudices – all in the service of their own power grab.

Democrats learned well the lesson of Abraham Lincoln’s, “A house divided against itself cannot stand.” What Lincoln said is true. But those divided people can, when properly manipulated, be positioned to prop up that which manipulates them. That is the essence of the modern Democratic Party.

The best part of this comment is that it will stick. Despite my dislike for Brooks, he is the “conservative’ for the NYT, he has a large megaphone that resonates with the east coast self-appointed intellectuals .

Rather than questioning those who lied to them for $50,000 a year plus room and board, millions of Progressivenstein’s monsters will revert to their training and, with Pavlovian efficiency, chalk up their failure to micro-aggression, or some other “ism” or phobia that exists only to keep them from thinking and adapting.

Hopefully someday they will realize they’ve been lied to, that’s it’s hard to get ahead, or even get a job, when you’ve spent your life nailing yourself to a cross. Then maybe, just maybe, they’ll fully turn against the people who taught them how to hammer.

One day the modern day slaves, of all colors, the sheelpe held down, for votes only, will wake up. It ain’t gon’ be pretty, looters and deceivers.

I find it interesting that many on the Left are still riding the Obama ship. Their whole reason for being is that they are the “enlightened intellectuals” and Obama is their torchbearer. If supporting Obama begins to erode their personal perception they will begin to bail.

I find it interesting that many on the Left are still riding the Obama ship. Their whole reason for being is that they are the “enlightened intellectuals” and Obama is their torchbearer. If supporting Obama begins to erode their personal perception they will begin to bail.

Tater Salad on April 21, 2014 at 4:04 PM

That’s because Obama is the Platonic Ideal of what they want to be, a too cool for school choom-huffing(re)gressive special snowflake who got everything handed to him on a silver platter, and and as a “clean and articulate person of color” to boot. Jimmy and Billy Jeff were hick-accented wannabes and Hillbeast is the ugly 3 AM reality of their nightmare made flesh.

It may come as an unwelcome surprise to conservatives, but America’s military has one of the only working models of collective living and social welfare the country has ever known.
Schadenfreude on April 21, 2014 at 4:07 PM

there is little that Obama and his merry band of idiots can do now that his foreign policies have had five years of growth in the world. The only thing that will turn the tide is a new president. Can’t steer the ship away from the coast when it is AT the coast.

Not only will the USA rue the day we elected an inexperienced narcissist with little to very little intelligence. The world will regret it too. Funny how there is always a world war when a progressive is president. No not really.

Given how Bush shifted towards diplomacy in his second term, I’m frankly not sure how starkly he would disagree with Obama’s basic approach these days. Would Dubya, the great promoter of democracy abroad, ETC

Really, Allahpundit? You would use essentially, WWWD (what would W do?) as a counter/discussion point to this matter? That’s like responding to commentary against Robert McNamara by asking if Rumsfeld would do any different/better.

Yeah, Obama has a manhood problem everywhere there are men who reject metrosexual standards. He exacerbated the policy missteps of “W”‘s administration, but he did so because he mostly continued the policy missteps of “W”. Dubya may have promoted democracy but he got little of it. Outside of a few certain circles he didn’t even get credit for massive humanitarian relief and therefore, by extension, failed to obtain credit for America. He was, and continues to be, far too often humble where he should be bold and self-promoting and a cowboy where he should be cold, calculating and resolved. Obama is self-promoting everywhere and only shows strength when setting straw-men afire. They can be compared, but as far as results, both skate heavily on thin ice of their own making.

David Brooks is a pajama poster boy for manhood problems. NBC so-called news got it right for once in the last few years. At least you know it’s coming from an expert on the matter when Brooks talks about a lack of manhood.

Or, as the black community puts it, “It’s a manhood issue!” Adding fuel to the fire, this comes from Super Pants Crease Our Miss Brooks, not someone known as a “man’s man, women love me, so will you!” kind of… writer.
.LOL

His capacity to be “tough” abroad is limited and the Assads and Putins know it.

That isn’t the problem. He went all in 100% Chicago Thug Tough Guy with Assad drawing red lines all over the place and we will strike you so I don’t get mocked and he got called on it and cried like a little girl, that is the problem.

I mean seriously, he drew a very clear distinct red line and when Assad crossed it Obama wet his pants.

Johnnyreb on April 21, 2014 at 3:33 PM

Exactly, and once it lost, there’s no way to get it back without looking like a whiny, little wuss.

Obama, the boy/child, displays no leadership in calling half the country racist; no honesty; no responsibility for the deaths in Bengazi; no sense in arming drug lords; no strength in equalling Putin; no interest in not throwing away and wasting trillions of dollars of hard earned American’s taxes; and is laughed at by every other leader in the world as unreliable and a liar. Wow, some President.

The One is tough as nails on things he hates- like energy, space exploration, gun owners, Israel, and America. The things Brooks thinks he has a cojones problem with are the things The One actually has a romantic infatuation with- Eastern mysticism, socialism, command-and-control, a “pre-technological Eden”, and especially himself.

Brooks doesn’t understand that The One is simply being nice to his friends. Which do not include us, Israel, or the West in general.

Or else Brooks knows this but wants to avoid admitting it. And since I consider him about as truthful as most MSM reporters (who are lying sacks of bovine dung), this works out to a weak-tea “justification” rather than actual criticism of a POTUS who has done more worth criticizing than anyone since Nixon.

IOW, critiquing the way The One does things is safer (in Brooks’ mind) than admitting he consistently does whatever will do the most damage to Western civilization.